Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/274

254 saw nothing but the bright eyes of the count. An overpowering sadness took possession of the young man; his hands relaxed their hold of the nargileh; the objects in the room gradually lost their form and color; and his disturbed vision seemed to perceive doors and curtains open in the wall.

"Friend," he cried, "I feel that I am dying; thanks!"

He made a last effort to extend his hand, but it fell powerless beside him. Then it appeared to him that Monte-Cristo smiled, not with the strange and fearful expression which had sometimes revealed to him the secrets of his heart, but with the benevolent kindness of a father for an infant that is unreasonable. At the same time the count appeared to increase in stature; his form, nearly double its usual height, stood out in relief against the red tapestry, his black hair was thrown back, and he stood in the attitude of a menacing angel of the day of judgment. Morrel, overpowered, turned round in the arm-chair; a delicious torpor was insinuated into every vein; a change of ideas presented themselves to his brain, like a new design on the kaleidoscope; enervated, prostrate, and breathless, he felt nothing living in him but this dream; he seemed to be entering that vague delirium preceding death. He wished once again to press the count's hand; but his own was unmovable; he wished to articulate a last farewell, but his tongue lay motionless and heavy in his throat, like a stone at the mouth of a sepulcher. Involuntarily his languid eyes closed; and still through his eyelashes a well-known form seemed to move amid the obscurity with which he thought himself enveloped.

The count had just opened the door. Immediately a brilliant light from the next room, or rather from a palace adjoining, shone upon the room into which he was gently gliding for his last sleep. Then he saw a woman of marvelous beauty appear on the threshold of the door separating the two rooms. Pale, and sweetly smiling, she looked like an angel of mercy conjuring the angel of vengeance.

"Is it heaven that opens before me?" thought the dying man; "that angel resembles the one I have lost."

Monte-Cristo pointed Morrel to the young woman, who advanced toward him with clasped hands and a smile upon her lips.

"Valentine! Valentine!" he mentally ejaculated; but his lips uttered no sound; and, as though all his strength were centered in that internal emotion, he sighed and closed his eyes. Valentine rushed toward him; his lips again moved.

"He is calling you," said the count; "he to whom you have confided your destiny—he from whom death would have separated you, calls you to him. Happily, I vanquished death. Henceforth, Valentine, you will never again be separated on earth; since he has rushed into death